China could prop up global economy despite slowdown

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said China will continue to spur global growth, despite its slowing rate of expansion, Reuters reported. The slowdown in China’s rate of growth to a predicted 7.5% this year from more than 14% in mid-2007 has received unduly negative coverage, Swan said Sunday at a G20 meeting in Mexico. “Much of the discussion about the growth rate in China doesn’t appreciate the fact that the Chinese economy is now 40% larger than it was at the end of 2007 … If it’s 40% larger and the growth rate is 7 or 8 (%), they are still making a very significant contribution to global growth,” Swan said, adding, however, that the lack of growth in Europe and the US was having an increasingly depressive effect on the global economy. He advocated measures to boost growth in the US.